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About The First Poets

A dazzling literary exploration by acclaimed poet and critic Michael Schmidt, The First Poets brings to life for the general reader the great Greek poets who gave our poetic tradition its first bearings and whose works have had an enduring influence on our literature and our imagination.

Starting with the legendary and possibly mythical Orpheus and with Homer, Schmidt conjures a host of our literary forebears. From Hipponax, “the dirty old man of poetry,” to Theocritus, the father of pastoral; from Sappho, who threw herself from a cliff for love, to Hesiod, who claimed a visit from the Muses–the stories in The First Poets masterfully merge fact and conjecture into animated and compelling portraits of these ancestors of our culture.

About The First Poets

A dazzling literary exploration by acclaimed poet and critic Michael Schmidt, The First Poets brings to life for the general reader the great Greek poets who gave our poetic tradition its first bearings and whose works have had an enduring influence on our literature and our imagination.

Starting with the legendary and possibly mythical Orpheus and with Homer, Schmidt conjures a host of our literary forebears. From Hipponax, “the dirty old man of poetry,” to Theocritus, the father of pastoral; from Sappho, who threw herself from a cliff for love, to Hesiod, who claimed a visit from the Muses–the stories in The First Poets masterfully merge fact and conjecture into animated and compelling portraits of these ancestors of our culture.

About Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt is the author of The Novel: A Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Lives of the Poets. Schmidt studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. In 1969, he founded Carcanet Press Limited, where he… More about Michael Schmidt

About Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt is the author of The Novel: A Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Lives of the Poets. Schmidt studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. In 1969, he founded Carcanet Press Limited, where he… More about Michael Schmidt

Table Of Contents

PrefaceIntroduction

I. Orpheus of ThraceII. The Legend PoetsIII. HomerIV. The Homeric ApocryphaV. The Iliad and the OdysseyVI. HesiodVII. Archilochus of ParosVIII. Alcman of SardisIX. Mimnermus of ColophonX. Semonides of AmorgosXI. Alcaeus of MytileneXII. Sappho of EressusXIII. Theognis of MegaraXIV. Solon of AthensXV. Stesichorus of HimeraXVI. Ibycus of RhegionXVII. Anacreon of TeosXVIII. Hipponax of EphesusXIX. Simonides of CosXX. Corinna of TanagraXXI. Pindar of ThebesXXII. Bacchylides of CosXXIII. Callimachus of CyreneXXIV. Apollonius of RhodesXXV. Theocritus of Syracuse